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American Morning

Look at Pictures Taken by Camera Faster Than Speeding Bullet

Aired August 19, 2002 - 09:55   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Before we leave you this morning, we want to show you some other amazing pictures, taken by a camera that's literally faster than a speeding bullet.
CNN's Bruce Burkhardt in the line of fire tells us how it works.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Look at this scene from the movie "Face/Off." In particular, look at the bullet flying from the gun. What's remarkable here is that it's not computer animation. It is a real bullet fired from a real gun, and a real camera was able to capture it in flight. This is the camera that took that shot, a camera capable of shooting 12,000 frames per second. The faster the film moves, the slower the action. It's five times as fast as any other system around, 30 times faster than any other camera capable of producing images of this quality.

NATHAN NEBEKER, CONNIPTION FILMS: The way this camera works is that you have a rotating drum, which spins around continuously. And there is a film track on the inside surface of that.

BURKHARDT: Nathan Nebeker developed this system drawing upon technology used in cameras for scientific research, cameras that produce lots of data, but not very good pictures.

NEBEKER: So a lot of it is just really a refinement of the system, so that it is a much more smooth and much more production- friendly.

BURKHARDT: Instead of pulling film from one reel to another past a shutter, this camera uses a single strip of film -- 120 frames -- and loops it around a drum that can spin up to 500 mph, or 12,000 frames a second. Our purpose here is not just to make me look like a raving idiot, but to show how this amazing camera works and how tricky it can be to capture that particular millisecond of action that you are looking for.

NEBEKER: The shockwave, when you balloon hits, it creates kind of like a soft-serve ice cream type looking thing on top of your head.

BURKHARDT: Don Cornett, who operates the camera, rigged up a video line to a computer that shows a single frame from the sequence, which, by the way, lasts 1/30th of a second.

NEBEKER: What we're trying to capture is the initial burst, the plastic falling away while the water still holding its shape before it too falls away. In this, the processed film, we see that we have not quite got it yet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to move this drop guide about two inches toward me.

BURKHARDT: To capture just that instant, we had to try it again and again and again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hit never gets old.

BURKHARDT: Each time adjusting the "trigger," a beam of light just above my head. When the balloon falls through that beam, it signals the camera to open the shutter. This was our final result. Computer animation is all well and good, but this is real.

Bruce Burkhardt, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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